Occasionally – very occasionally, mind – a group's self-awareness is acute. The Pet Shop Boys always had a keen sense of themselves, probably because they didn't become famous until Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe were approaching their thirties.

There was plenty of cake but no talk of war at Claude Choules's 110th birthday party in Perth yesterday. Despite 41 years in the armed forces, the last surviving combat veteran of the First World War is a pacifist, according to his family.